A post on the
Bethesda Blog on what the developers there are playing offers hope that a
Fallout 3 demo may be in the cards, in spite of previous statements that there
will not be a demo for the coming RPG sequel (story). The blog
entry on what Matt Grandstaff is playing says "Fallout 3 demo — over and over
again" (thanks Xlr8). We contacted Bethesda for a clarification on this, and
were informed that Matt is touring Australia and New Zealand showing off a demo
build of the game to area retailers. The demo is not going to be released
publically, and Bethesda is apologetic if this comment gave anyone a mistaken
impression.

Bethesda needs to hire professional writers who actually have published novels under their belt. The Assasin's Guild storyline in Oblivion was fun I thought, but everything else was forgettable (and often nonsensical) dreck. For example, did the Mage story line really have to be about a rogue necromancer faction? Sigh. Could they come up with anything better than that? There wasnt a single plot twist in that story line.

Name three exceptionally cool/wicked/outstanding characters in Oblivion you routinely intereacted with.

Now do the same for Fallout.

Now do the same for quests.

That's why people people are wary of Bethesda doing Fallout; Fallout is about characters, and Bethesda just doesn't do them very well. Ditto for quests which go beyond the mere "go here, kill all; fetch me this".

I had FUN playing it, even though it was simplified it still gave me enough choices and freedom to feel like a real cRPG.

Oblivion offered many choices, yes, but all of them were superficial. Character development choices were superficial because you could max out every skill and heavily pad your attributes with enchantments. Quest choices were superficial because you didn't have any meaningful choices within quests. You either did a quest or you didn't. You couldn't join the Necromancers or the Blackwood Company or the Imperial Guard. There were so many opportunities where they could have offered the player a moral choice but didn't.

Will Fallout 3 remedy these problems? One can only hope. However, based on Bethesda's previous games and console mentality, there is cause for concern.

Karl_L: Then you need to try the Fallout 2 restoration project mod. This guy has spent literally years rebuilding all the missing parts back into FO2.http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40590For instance, remember sulik talked about rescuing his sister? Now you actually CAN. All the things the devs gave up for lack of time, he has completed.Here's a list of new locations he's done (I belive they are all based upon little snippets of code or graphics or resources or text that were left in FO2 by the devs)

Not only that he's done things like extended the cattle rustling quest. Remember how there were those various items in the game that didn't seem to do anything with the castle rustling quest (like the fake claws)? The devs ran out of time to implement them. Well he has implemented them.

Also, he's fixed HUNDREDS of bugs left in FO 2 as well (and updated it to run on modern machines). He includes in his mod a tool made by someone working with him to scale FO2 up in resolution as well (it uses some of the filters that MAME uses to help scale things up).

Some random fixes:"Before, Goris was the only one who can highlight this on your world map even though Chris in Navarro and Jimmy in Vault 13 both tell you the location of it. Now all three place it on you map.""K-9's armor definition is no longer bugged where it would lose its innate AC bonus after it levels up.""Bess no longer disappears forever when you go down the Shitter or Well.""Brahmin no longer get stuck in the pen when you let them escape.""Navarro male sergeant is no longer using the female proto.""The guard on level 3 with the H&K P90c now has the correct ammunition.""Car no longer disappears when you go down the manhole in the secret entrance and then come back up.""Bar on the Oil Tanker No longer closed 24/7""Myron now disappears when you sell him to Merk""You can now correctly guess the password to disable the shock plates on level 2 of the S.A.D.""Salvatore no longer locks up when you click on him after becoming a made man, nor if you decline a mission he gives."

And hundreds and hundreds more.Those are JUST the bug fixes alone (which you can use his patch without doing the mod if you are the kinda guy who wants just the original fallout2.

Bethesda has stated on numerous occasions that they have removed level scaling. Which was by far the biggest problem of Oblivion. Sure Oblivion's main story was tame compared to Morrowind. Many quests lacked the depth that was found in Morrowind, but it was still a FUN game. I had FUN playing it, even though it was simplified it still gave me enough choices and freedom to feel like a real cRPG.

The man behind the best quest/s in Oblivion (and in my opinnion one of the best of the Elderscrolls series) is Lead Designer on Fallout 3.

I say let's give them the benefit of the doubt and wait for the game to come out before we crucify them on the fucking cross.

When it does, and if it turns out shit, then by all means, bring out the hammer and nails!

People vastly overestimate the number of 'hardcore' Fallout fans out there, the type that would go ballistic over a tiny change in lore, as opposed to regular Fallout fans who simply like the feel of the game.

I'd like to think that fans of any game are fans of its gameplay, not just its feel. If you take away the gameplay elements that fans liked (such as turn-based combat), it's not unreasonable for the fans to be discontent. Bioshock and Deus Ex 2 tried to capture the "feel" of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex but they were missing the key aspects of gameplay that made those games great.

The way they've 'protested' Fallout 3, going irrationally belligerent toward anything related to the game or Bethesda has taken what could have been viable complaints and turned it into a laughing stock.

I don't think there's anything really irrational about their concerns. Bethesda's last game was terribly consolized and had no meaningful choice whatsoever. It also had blatantly horrible design choices like level scaling. Bethesda has even gone on record saying that they don't like long-term repercussions stemming from player choice. They also don't like having dialogue repercussions. Hell, they've even confessed to being console gamers and not having the attention span for traditional cRPGs. All these things contradict what the first two Fallout games were all about.

This is really the worst thing about Oblivion, and absolutely what I don't want in an single-player RPG. The SP aspect should reward you for exploring every nook and cranny of the world, allow you to significantly shape the progress of the story, world, and characters therein, and eschew grinding in favor of a broad spectrum of varied and interesting quests. The MMO-ish aspect (minimally different dungeons, the boring Oblivion gates) took half the fun out of the game, because you were doing the exact same thing in the same Lego-set-piece areas for random loot in the same chest, aka grinding. It missed out on all the strengths an SP RPG has to offer. If an offline MMO is what you're after, set up your own UO shard and enjoy hours and hours of boring vanilla gameplay, and stay away from my unique and varied SP experience.

Although horribly buggy (but in a decent state now) Gothic 3 did a great job of playing to those strengths. There were loads of items scattered around the world, and you could brave some very tough enemies early on in exchange for some powerful items or stacks of loot. You could choose between a few distinct paths through the story, and they'd affect your whole experience. Certain characters could be killed or saved, with varying results. And there were moral choices, for you as a character and player, which I feel are necessary to keeping a level of immersion. Even Morrowind did a better job at utilizing SPs strengths, with the best example being the East Empire Company in Bloodmoon. As you completed quests, and based on a few decisions along the way, you watched an entire settlement being built, progressing along with you. It really showed how you could shape the world you were playing in, something that's sorely lacking in MMOs, EVE Online being the exception, and it's one of my favorite aspects of any game (hell, I wrote an EEC walkthrough, which is still up on GameFAQs: http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/589642/23807 ).

I'd consider myself a fairly hardcore Fallout fan. By far my longest gaming session ever was a completist playthrough of Fallout 2, which clocked in at over 3 days, stopping to eat and use the bathroom (I was 13, I got the game for Christmas, and it was a boring holiday). I still play 1+2 every 18 months or so, and enjoy them every time. But I'm not stupid enough to expect the same experience I had almost a decade ago out of Fallout 3. Bethesda seems to have a lot of real fans on staff, and everything I've seen makes it look like they're focusing on a smaller, more detailed, more choice-driven world, which along with the serious setting that doesn't take itself too seriously, is exactly what the Fallouts were about. Mass Effect was a big step for Bioware compared to most of their previous games, but the shift in perspective and new take on dialogue worked to make a great game, and I think took certain aspects of the RPG experience to a new level. Bethesda looks to be doing the same thing, and in a setting I love, so I'm at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt before I have a chance to play the game. And even if it doesn't recreate FO1+2 step for step, I'm certainly open to enjoying the world of Fallout in a way that was nigh inconceivable back when the original games were brand new.

People vastly overestimate the number of 'hardcore' Fallout fans out there, the type that would go ballistic over a tiny change in lore, as opposed to regular Fallout fans who simply like the feel of the game. Those ultra-hardcore fans (the ultra verbal minority) are so few in number that them buying or not buying the game will have nil effect on the final sales numbers. Fractions of a percent.

The way they've 'protested' Fallout 3, going irrationally belligerent toward anything related to the game or Bethesda has taken what could have been viable complaints and turned it into a laughing stock. People go to the sites run by these people simply to be amused by the angry nonsense, by the digging for something, anything to find objectionable in anything Bethsoft says, regardless of whether it actually means what they claim or not.

Except those are no longer their principles. You'll notice that hardly anyone listed in the Daggerfall credits still works for Bethesda. You'll also note that since those words were written, Bethesda was acquired by Zenimax Media, and no longer has the freedom to set its own design philosophy.

What are Bethesda's new guiding principles? Easy, just read the interviews for Fallout 3. The reoccurring question Bethesda has asked itself is: how can we make this appeal to people that don't like RPGs? Todd Howard, Emil Pagliarulo and Pete Hines have all said as much. The fact that Fallout 3 has a lot more in common with a console shooter than a CRPG is the result of their new priorities.

However, the Daggerfall demo was just the intro dungeon where you end up after your shipwreck, and really was rather pointless as far as representing the complete game goes.

No it wasn't. There were two Daggerfall demos. The first was a dungeon crawl, but it was not Privateer's Hold (the opening dungeon). Instead, it was a much, much larger dungeon that came complete with a settlement on one of the levels which served as your home base. It was very similar to how Ultima Underworld was set up, actually.

The second demo took place on one of the islands in the game. You couldn't leave the island but all of the towns, dungeons, guilds, etc. that were available on that island were available to you. In other words, you basically had the complete gameplay experience, minus the main quest.

The nutters who turned into non-casual, socially rejected, religious freaks over Fallout are a minority, leading their pitiful, insignificant online-only no-lives over at NMA. But they don't count in the grand scheme of things. Luckily.

If I remember correctly one of the Fallout games had a Demo, as well as Daggerfall.

You remember correctly. However, the Daggerfall demo was just the intro dungeon where you end up after your shipwreck, and really was rather pointless as far as representing the complete game goes. I suppose they could've made a demo for Oblivion that ends where you get out of the jail, but that wouldn't give a very good idea of the complete game. If they made one for FO3 it'd just be the birthday party in the vault.

I didn't realize there was such a thing as a "casual" Fallout fan. There are those who have played Fallout and thought it was merely okay but I wouldn't consider those fans in the first place.

There certainly are "casual" Fallout fans. The Fallouts sold millions of copies over the years. I bet there are a large number of people who believed that the games were great and who would and will happily dish out the cash for a 3rd installment (this is the "casual" fan).The nutters who turned into non-casual, socially rejected, religious freaks over Fallout are a minority, leading their pitiful, insignificant online-only no-lives over at NMA. But they don't count in the grand scheme of things. Luckily.

I have to say that this game will most likely have little trouble selling well intially, even lacking a demo. Casual Bethesda (read: Elder Scrolls) fans, along with the casual fallout fans will most likely flock to Fallout 3 on release day.

I didn't realize there was such a thing as a "casual" Fallout fan. There are those who have played Fallout and thought it was merely okay but I wouldn't consider those fans in the first place.